PC Magazine July 2021

is your broadband fast enough?

Yes, that’s right: We’re asking you. Every year, we pull together data from our online PCMag Speed Test to determine readers’ broadband speeds throughout the US. This method tells us which ISPs—from the giants, such as Comcast and Verizon, down to small, local service providers—are providing the fastest broadband speed to their customers. Here’s a shocker (or maybe not): One of the small, local service providers on our list, Empire Access, based in southern New York state, is the fastest ISP in the United States. In good news for those located in the regions of not-so-fast services—generally rural areas—President Biden has announced a plan to improve broadband infrastructure in underserved areas of the US, with a goal of providing 100% coverage for our country. Interestingly enough, the $100 billion plan isn’t earmarked…

can you trust customer reviews?

DATABASE REVEALS OVER 200K PEOPLE INVOLVED IN POSTING FAKE REVIEWS ON AMAZON I actually reported some sellers attempting to buy my good review directly to Amazon. Amazon was extremely slow in actually being able to take down the vendors. The process was so painful, in fact, that I probably would never bother to do it again. I’m sure those same vendors are back up on Amazon as some other name, as Amazon does zero vetting of marketplace vendors. Amazon has serious issues with credibility and many of the Chinese vendors on their platform are very underhanded and don’t follow the Amazon Marketplace rules at all. I stopped reading anything other than the bad reviews, really. I do check the questions from time to time … but I never read the good…

samsung develops a ‘stretchable electronic skin’ oled display

Samsung may be at the forefront of folding and sliding display technology, but the company’s researchers have also been working on displays that can be stretched (with research happening even as far back as 2017), and we’re beginning to see working prototypes. In June, Samsung revealed a stretchable OLED display that acts as a heart rate sensor. The wrist-mounted device combines photoplethysmography (PPG) heart rate sensors and an OLED screen to offer real-time heartbeat monitoring. The research team was able to stretch the device (to 30% elongation) 1,000 times without causing any damage while at the same time recording a heartbeat signal pickup that’s “2.4 times stronger than would be picked up by a fixed silicon sensor.” The stretchable device, which Samsung refers to as “Stretchable Electronic Skin,” was developed at the Samsung…

can cryptocurrency replace the us dollar?

Even though its value is no longer pinned to great stacks of gold in Fort Knox, the US dollar is a stable and trusted currency worldwide. It’s the reserve currency for the world, supporting international transactions and all aspects of the global economy. But will it continue to hold that position? Might Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency eventually replace it? At the virtual RSA security conference (RSAC 2021) in May, Dr. Kenneth Geers, external communications analyst for Very Good Security, explored this topic, along with Very Good Security’s Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Kathy Wang. “Is cryptocurrency going to change my life? Change the world?” asked Geers. “Will it bring the end of the nation-state?” Geers led off by pointing out Bitcoin’s amazingly meteoric rise. On May 22, 2010—a day now dubbed Bitcoin…

exclusive: oneplus ceo reveals nord n200 phone details

OnePlus will raise the bar for budget phones with 5G and a 90Hz display for under $250 in the US, the company revealed exclusively to PCMag in mid-June. “From the premium and ultra-premium OnePlus 9 series to the OnePlus Nord N200 5G—our newest and most affordable 5G device ever—we’re providing more choices and easier access to 5G for our users,” OnePlus CEO Pete Lau said in an email interview. Last year’s OnePlus Nord N10 5G took the US prepaid market by storm. Reports from Wave7 Research said that the N10 and its cheaper 4G sibling, the Nord N100, lifted OnePlus’s market share to over 15% at Metro by T-Mobile. Now OnePlus is returning with a phone that brings more of the N10’s features closer to the N200’s price point. Although the N100 had…

without a killer app, who needs 5g?

Wireless carriers around the world aren’t offering new services that would make consumers actually want 5G, according to a bleak new report from Ericsson. “Five Ways to a Better 5G” reveals that 70% of consumers are dissatisfied with the “availability of innovative services” on 5G and “expect new applications” that they aren’t getting. The report says consumers would be willing to pay 20% to 30% more for things such as 5G TV, 5G in-car entertainment, 360-degree live-streams of events, and instant, responsive cloud access. But none of that is happening. It’s not for lack of vision. I’ve been hearing about 5G applications for years. In 2019, Sprint made a deal with cloud gaming service Hatch for 5G game-streaming. But both the carrier and the cloud gaming service have since gone out of…